


a rollercoaster that only goes up

by skeilig



Series: It's Always Sunny in Derry [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Sexual Situations, Cheating, Drinking, Drunk Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Mentioned Eddie/Greta, Multi, The Losers all stayed in Derry, They're in their 20s in this, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeilig/pseuds/skeilig
Summary: At the age of twenty-nine, all Richie’s amounted to is a half-naked man, hiding and holding his breath in a cramped closet at Connor Bowers’ home in Bangor, listening while his fiancee accuses him of having an affair and while Connor steadfastly denies it.Or, one very weird day in Richie’s life.
Relationships: Connor Bowers/Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: It's Always Sunny in Derry [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980571
Comments: 14
Kudos: 49





	a rollercoaster that only goes up

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to the first fic in this series. This could be read as a standalone piece but I think the first fic is pretty good so… pwease read it… also since this is a prequel there is very little resolution to be found in this fic alone. 
> 
> \+ this one-shot is probably best read AFTER that fic, even though it takes place chronologically before it. It’s like Star Wars okay?! It’s exactly the same as Star Wars except probably better.

Richie Tozier used to think he was destined for great things. He was a bright kid and he was competent at most things he tried. His parents were supportive, too, paying for guitar lessons when he discovered his mom’s old Spanish guitar in the basement storage, or coming to the community theater plays where he had a few lines. He spent a lot of time as a child fantasizing that he would become a prodigy, well-known and appreciated for his talents in music, acting, comedy, ventriloquism… What have you. Any hobby Richie picked up became a potential way for him to make his mark on the world. 

He’s not sure exactly at what age one outgrows the possibility of ever being a prodigy. Eighteen, probably? Maybe twenty, to be generous. The point is, at a certain age, no one really gives a shit if you’re good at things. That’s to be expected. In your twenties, it’s still possible to be called a Wunderkind if you do something really extraordinary like win a Nobel Prize or run for office. 

Richie’s twenties were a gradual realization that his childhood fantasies were narcissistic nonsense and that he’s a nobody, not particularly gifted at anything, and that his top grades in high school meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

Emotionally, developmentally, he’s probably behind his underachieving peers because at least they didn’t used to practice Oscar acceptance speeches in the bathroom mirror. 

Delusional, basically; he spent his childhood being utterly delusional.

The last shred of that delusion lingered for a long time, though. He still held onto some empty fantasies that maybe he could hit it big if he wrote the right thing, perfected the standup set that lives only in his own mind, never committed to paper for fear of realizing just what a hack he really is. 

But at the age of twenty-nine, Richie finally lets it go for good. Because, at the age of twenty-nine, all Richie’s amounted to is a half-naked man, hiding and holding his breath in a cramped closet at Connor Bowers’ home in Bangor and listening while his fiancee accuses him of having an affair and while Connor steadfastly denies it. 

There were a series of bad decisions that led Richie to this moment. 

It all started four months ago when Connor found himself in Derry and stopped by The Clubhouse bar for a drink. 

(Well, technically, it all started sixteen years ago, in the arcade, between furtive glances and sweaty palms and feeling sick to his stomach for reasons Richie couldn’t quite place.)

But four months ago, Richie was working at the bar by himself—it was a Thursday night—and Connor came in with another, older man who Richie gathered was his father. As soon as Richie glanced up at the sound of the door opening, he was caught in bewildered eye contact with Connor. They stared at each other for a moment, Richie’s hand frozen on the glass he was drying, Connor stopped in place by the door. But his dad, a balding and generously bellied man, oblivious to the weird tension between his son and the bartender, lumbered up to the bar and asked for two beers. 

Richie tore his eyes away from Connor’s stricken face and turned to pour them. 

He must recognize him, Richie figured, what with the reaction. He must remember. Connor didn’t even look that different. He was taller, and little broader in the shoulders and chest, but he was still thin, still had a head of curly blond hair. Still pretty. 

When Richie turned back, Connor was sitting on one of the barstools next to his father and he thanked Richie when he slid the beers in front of them, without making eye contact. 

The two of them stayed at the bar for a little over an hour, talking in low voices about some medical emergency concerning Connor’s mom, obviously the thing that had brought him back to town, while Richie kept himself busy cleaning up and otherwise trying really hard to not listen, or at least appear as though he wasn’t listening. 

When they left, Connor’s dad said, “Well, you better be on your way,” and he put some cash on the bar top and thanked Richie. Richie nodded in their direction and wished them a good night but didn’t glance over. When they were finally gone, Richie let out his breath for what felt like the first time since they walked in, and he looked over at where they had been sitting. 

Connor left his jacket behind on the stool. Richie stared at it for a second, considering his options, considering running after them—they only left a minute ago—and also considering doing nothing, which was the more appealing option. 

In the end, he didn’t have to decide—although he was leaning heavily toward doing nothing—because the door opened again and Connor walked back in. 

“Oh, you left your–” Richie began to say as Connor approached the bar to grab it. 

“Sorry, Richie, I didn’t want to…” he interrupted, shrugging into the coat. He didn’t meet Richie’s eye but he seemed more embarrassed than anything. “I’m going to be in town more often because of my…”

Richie nodded. “Yeah, sorry to, uh… hear about that.” 

“Yeah, thanks. So, I’m gonna be around I guess, I don’t things to be weird, and I feel bad about… you know.” 

He looked up then meeting Richie’s gaze and holding it. His eyes were still piercing blue.

Richie just nodded, still feeling lost. “Okay, sure. No worries.” 

“Thanks.” Connor nodded back at him then took a step back toward the door. “I better go.” 

For a while, Richie thought that was the end of it. Just a weird unsatisfying interaction with someone from his past, someone who he had built up to be quite the villain in his own mind, worse than Henry Bowers even, because of the added sting of betrayal from a supposed friend. He couldn’t tell any of his friends about it, of course, because he’d have to explain who Connor was to him, and why it hurt him so bad. So all Richie really did was replay the encounter in his head on a loop for the next few weeks, fantasizing about how it might have gone differently, how he might have epically ripped Connor a new one, told him that he was an asshole and a coward and that he better get the fuck out of Richie’s bar, out of his _town_. 

Yeah, _fuck_ Connor. If he ever dared to show his face in the Clubhouse again, Richie would have a rehearsed rant at the ready. 

Of course it didn’t really go down like that. The next time Connor stopped by, Richie wasn’t alone—Ben was working with him, and Mike and Bev were drinking together at one of the booths while they schemed about an upcoming health inspection (health inspections required _scheming_ to pass, for the Losers)—so Richie had no choice but to act normal. 

Ben served him and said, “Hey, aren’t you…?” which only led Connor into some storytelling that was ostensibly directed at Ben but clearly for Richie’s benefit. Richie stood with his back turned, washing and drying glasses, trying to appear to ignore Connor as he told his sob story. 

Henry was awful, Connor lamented, even to his own family. He hated visiting Derry in the summers, and was really scared of Henry but his parents didn’t really take him seriously, thought he was exaggerating when he told them things. He remembered one time when he was probably nine that Henry kept trying to shoot one of the farm cats and Connor cried hysterically but that only egged him on. 

“Jesus,” Ben said, ever the sympathetic ear. “He gave me a lot of hell but at least I wasn’t stuck with him.”

“Well, only once a year,” Connor ceded. “But still. Wish I could say I was surprised when all of that happened… I guess I’m just glad it didn’t go even farther.” 

“I mean, he killed… how many kids?” Richie muttered, still not turning around. “Eight? Went pretty fucking far.” 

There was a beat of silence. Ben hummed uncomfortably to fill it. 

“That’s true,” Connor said. “I mean, I said I wasn’t _surprised_ , but I really– I had no fucking clue, you know? I really didn’t know he was doing that. I would’ve done something if I did, believe me.” 

Richie believed him. Henry wasn’t actually doing that, either. Henry was a real piece of work, hopefully the purest psychopath that Richie would ever have the misfortune of meeting, but he didn’t actually kill any of those kids, after all. He probably wanted to, probably would have, but he _didn’t_. 

When Richie slipped away to go home, not long after, Connor paid for the drink, tipped Ben and followed Richie out the door. They were no sooner in the alley, the door swung shut behind them, that Richie spun around.

“What do you _want?_ ” Richie demanded, and he hit the confrontational tone that he was aiming for, but he hated that he still felt like maybe he had something to apologize for, to be embarrassed about. He tried to remind himself that he didn’t have anything to feel bad about, but he couldn’t help but feel it anyway, like he was curling inward with shame. 

Connor held his hands up defensively. “Hey, sorry. Nothing. Just to talk.”

“About what?” Richie asked, voice a low hiss as he leaned in closer. “I don’t know why you’re even hanging around here. I don’t wanna see you.”

Richie turned away to make his escape up the stairs and to his apartment above, but Connor caught him by the arm. “Whoa, Richie, come on,” he said, sounding more confused than anything. “I didn’t think you were, like…”

Richie twisted out his grip, standing a couple steps above him now. “You didn’t think I was– what? Still mad?”

Connor blinked up at him. “I mean… no?” 

Richie groaned, more dramatically than he really meant to, tipping his head back to stare at the night sky. 

“Look, I couldn’t have…” Connor started, rocking back and forth on his feet. “The way it was for me… You know? I had to be really careful.”

“Okay.” Richie looked back at him, fleetingly meeting his eyes before he trained his gaze back to the middle-distance beyond his shoulder. “So you want absolution?”

“Absolution?” Connor repeated, with a short laugh. “No, asshole, I’m not asking you to forgive me, I just thought you might show some basic fucking sympathy for how hard it was to grow up gay in that family.” 

Richie immediately looked back to him, unmoored enough that he nearly slipped off the edge of the step. He tightened his grip on the railing. “Oh,” he said finally. “You’re…”

“Yeah,” Connor said, before turning on his heel and walking toward the mouth of the alley, leaving Richie behind in the dark. He waved over his shoulder at him. “Goodnight.”

That was the start of it, and Richie was dumb enough to feel bad for Connor, so the next time he came around, he was friendly to him, and the time after that it was the two of them alone at the bar so Richie flipped off the OPEN sign in the window and drank with him while they talked for hours. “I live upstairs,” Richie said as the night got later, nodding toward the ceiling. 

Connor held his beer bottle close to his lips, partially obscuring his smile. Richie had been staring at his mouth for the past hour. “Okay,” he said. 

The rest of the night Richie kept thinking if he could go back in time to speak to his thirteen-year-old self that awful day, he could’ve told him things would get better. Stick it out for the rest of your teen years, keep your head down, and you’re gonna get your heart absolutely fucking _trampled_ in your twenties, but before you’re thirty you’re gonna be able to heal those old wounds and find a boy who actually likes you. It’s gonna be okay, Richie. 

It wasn’t until the next morning that Connor told Richie he was engaged—but apparently, considering calling it off. 

Richie stopped fantasizing about going back in time to brag about his life to his teenage self. Maybe a warning would be a better idea. 

The thing about hiding in a closet—literally—is that at some point you have to come out. 

God. Richie can recognize, even at this very moment, how darkly comedic this situation is. Maybe he needs to return to one of his old half-written standup sets, work this in somehow. 

Connor’s fiancee’s name is Melissa and Richie still has no idea what she looks like, but now he knows what her voice sounds like. She had apparently called Connor’s mother earlier that day to check in, and found out that, when he visits Derry, he has not been spending the night with her. Richie feels sick to his stomach. 

He crosses his arms over his naked chest and shivers, chilled with nerves and drying sweat. He had pulled his boxers back up—hadn’t made much progress getting them all the way down by the time they heard the front door open—before Connor shoved him into the closet. The rest of his clothes are littered on the floor in front of the bed, which he can see through the door, open just a crack. He crouches down and reaches out through the slightly ajar door until he can grab them, pulling his t-shirt and jeans back into the closet where he dresses. 

Honestly, this is more suspicious. Richie should have left the bedroom with Connor as soon as Melissa got home, fully clothed, and been introduced as a friend. But hindsight is 20-20, he supposes. 

At this point, there’s no way out of this situation. They’re going to come into the bedroom at some point, right? What’s Richie supposed to do, stay here until they fall asleep and sneak out? 

Fuck that. 

Now that he’s dressed he takes a deep breath and opens the door. He leaves the bedroom and walks down the hallway, toward the sound of the argument. Connor’s trying to say he had been staying with an old friend in Derry, trying to say he never even told Melissa he’d been spending nights with his parents—it sounds like a losing battle. 

Richie steps into the hallway and they both go silent immediately, staring at him. 

“Hi, sorry, I’m gonna… go,” Richie mutters, stepping around Melissa, where she’s standing unmoving in the hallway, apparently too shocked to do anything. Richie’s not sure what he was picturing, when he thought of this faceless woman, but she’s shorter than he expected, a round face that makes her look young.

Connor looks appalled, his expression frozen, face pale. It gives Richie some kind of sick satisfaction, even in this horrible humiliating cruel moment. 

He steps into his shoes, left unnoticed by the door and flees the scene, half-walking half-jogging to his car, parked around the block like always so neighbors wouldn’t start to get suspicious. 

Fifteen minutes into his drive back to Derry, his phone starts ringing and doesn’t stop, buzzing in his jeans pocket. He bounces his left leg incessantly, wearing off his nervous energy, and keeps his right foot heavy on the gas. 

When he parks in the alley behind the bar he takes out his phone to check. Three voicemails, all from Connor. He only listens to the most recent one, and only half of it, not surprised to be met with a lot of vitriolic, really abusively homophobic shit. It wasn’t that far below the surface after all. Maybe people don’t truly ever change. Richie hasn’t. 

For a moment, he’s worried, struck with bone-deep fear, because Connor knows where he lives. Should he move? As if he can afford that. 

Instead of going upstairs to his apartment, where he only has beer, he goes into the bar, where there’s harder stuff.

The door’s locked, lights dim inside as they always are at night, but when he opens the door and shoves inside, Eddie’s sitting at the bar, bottle of beer gripped in his hand, staring at him. 

Richie pauses, surprised, and now the last hellish hour of his life feels less than real. Now the only thing real in the world is Eddie, wide-eyed and looking embarrassed at having been caught, drinking alone at the bar. 

“Hey,” Richie says, starting to smile. He lets the door close and lock behind him and sidles up to the bar to steal a sip of Eddie’s drink. “How’d you get in here?” 

“I got Bill to give me his spare,” Eddie says, a smile threatening to wrest control of his scowling face. His dimples are fucking absurd; Richie can hardly look at them. 

“Hope you’re gonna leave some cash in the till. Free drinks are for employees only.” 

Richie hops up to sit on the bar, reaching behind so he can pour himself a shot of vodka. 

“Let me pick up a few shifts then,” Eddie grumbles. 

“Really?” This is interesting. He quirks an eyebrow at Eddie, trying to hold eye contact while he tosses the shot back. He mostly succeeds. “What about the pharmacy?” 

What Richie doesn’t say is: _What about your wife and father-in-law? What about you acting like you were too good for this for years? What about the times when you wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t come into the bar at all?_

Turns out, Richie doesn’t have to pry. He’s not sure how long Eddie’s been here, drinking alone, or if Bill was with him earlier in the night—there are a lot of empties on the bar top, so part of him hopes he’s not solely responsible for all of them. Either way, Eddie’s clearly drunk. His eyes don’t quite focus when he stares up earnestly at Richie and confesses, “Richie, I hate it.” 

He quickly follows that with, “Richie, stop laughing,” but he’s losing the battle against his own smile. 

“You’re laughing,” Richie points out, still laughing. He pours two shots this time and Eddie takes one. 

“Fuck you,” Eddie says, grimacing though the alcohol burn. “I hate it. I want to drop out of the program but Greta’s dad is paying for it and they’re both gonna be pissed at me, and I want to work here at the bar with you guys, and I… This was all her idea anyway. I never really wanted this.”

Richie feels _elated_. He doesn’t think he’s gone from feeling so shitty to feeling so good this quickly before. 

“Shit,” he says with humor. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear those words, Eddie. Let’s celebrate. Just give me a minute to catch up with you.” 

Richie swings his legs over to hop down on the other side of the bar, and goes about mixing himself a little something more palatable than straight vodka but not much less potent. 

“Where were you tonight?” Eddie asks. “Your car wasn’t here when I got here.” 

“Out,” Richie answers, in the flattest tone he can manage, willing Eddie to ask no followup questions. He doesn’t want to think about what happened tonight. He wants to get wasted with Eddie, something they haven’t done together, just the two of them, in a long, long time. 

“Oh, _out_ ,” Eddie repeats, but he doesn’t make Richie explain. Richie’s simultaneously relieved and offended. “Hey, make me something, too.” 

Richie glances up at Eddie, then nods at the five empty beer bottles on the bar. “Were those all you?” 

“Some were Bill,” Eddie says, not totally convincingly, but Richie feels he’s fulfilled the least of his duties as a responsible friend and bartender. “Come on, I thought you wanted to celebrate.” 

Fair enough. Richie makes them each a drink, mixing vodka and ginger beer—this is Stan’s favorite, and he can’t make it without thinking of the guy—squeezing limes wedges with his fingers. They leave the bar to sprawl in one of the booths instead, across from each other, Eddie with his feet up on his bench, and Richie with his legs stretched out under the table to rest bumping casually against Eddie’s shins. 

“He’s _so_ fucking… creepy!” Eddie is saying emphatically, about his father-in-law, Derry’s one and only pharmacist, Mr. Keene. Eddie _still_ calls him Mr. Keene, not his first name—Richie has no idea what his first name actually is—after being married to his daughter for years, which Richie finds equally hilarious and disturbing. “I swear, every time I see him, he goes…” 

Eddie suddenly leans across the table to grab Richie’s face in one hand, turning his chin sharply to one side. His hand is warm and firm and Richie holds his breath on instinct. 

“Eddie, is this a new mole?” Eddie says in a frankly terrible impression of Mr. Keene. He jabs one finger against Richie’s cheek, hard enough that it hits his teeth. “And I say, No, Mr. Keene, I’ve had that mole since I was a kid.” 

Eddie lets go of Richie’s face with a parting slap to his cheek—Richie’s pulse jumps—and sinks back against the booth opposite. 

“He used to leer at Bev, too,” Richie adds, trying not to think about how his face feels like it’s burning. If he’s noticeably blushing he doesn’t want to make it worse. He can’t even say it’s the alcohol since he’s barely started. 

“Leer is a good word for it,” Eddie says sullenly. “What a miserable fucking bastard.” 

Richie explodes with laughter. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.” 

“I’m just fucking sick of Greta making excuses for him and always taking his side and…” He trails off, shaking his head, and throws the rest of his drink back. 

Richie feels like he’s on a rollercoaster that only goes up. 

“So, you’re not too… _keen_ on taking over the family business anymore?”

Eddie stares at him, brow line perfectly straight. “Fuck you.”

Richie laughs. “Come on! That’s a good one.” 

“Is not.” Eddie kicks his feet off the bench where they rest next to him, but Richie just puts them right back up. “But… No. No way. I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I’ll go insane.” 

Richie understands that sentiment. He gets up to make them each another drink. 

It’s late when Richie offers Eddie his couch, if he wants to crash upstairs, sleep it off, rather than try to go home. 

Eddie makes a face at the suggestion, grimacing but laughing through it. “Greta’s gonna be so pissed.”

“Does she know where you are?” 

Eddie laughs more, shoulders shaking helplessly. There’s an edge of hysteria to it. “No, I told her I was gonna see Bill but… She always asks me about Bev, did you know that? I always lie and tell her Bev’s not there if I’m with you guys. As if me and Bev are gonna…” He shudders slightly. “She’s like my _sister_ , Richie.” 

He’s so solemn and seemingly offended by the accusation; it’s hilarious. Richie just laughs and pulls Eddie to his feet, arm around his waist, ostensibly to steady him. He is drunk but he’s fine to walk on his own. “Okay, let’s get upstairs.” 

Eddie doesn’t suggest calling his wife to tell her where he is, and Richie’s not about to bring it up; selfishly, he wants this to throw a little gasoline on this fire. If things are already rocky between them, then Eddie spending the night away without a word isn’t going to help. 

Richie locks up, and Eddie clings to him, his arm around Richie’s waist now, a hot solid weight at the small of his back. They climb the stairs to the apartment above, Eddie rambling all the while. “I mean, I don’t really care. Let her be pissed. It’s like… She’s always telling me what to do. To get this job, to go to school, to cut off my mom. But if I say anything to her? About her dad or anything? She does _not_ take it well.” 

If Richie were less drunk himself maybe he’d initiate a serious heart-to-heart about Eddie’s obviously unbalanced marriage, about Greta trying to manipulate him or take advantage of him—but as it is, Richie just says, “She’s kind of a bitch, you know,” as he shoves Eddie through the door. 

“Okay, well.” Eddie huffs, maybe a bit uncomfortable as he falls onto the lumpy living room couch. “That’s my wife so you can’t say that.” 

“Yeah, you gonna defend her honor?” Richie’s being a dick, for sure, but Eddie’s not taking the bait; he’s just lying on Richie’s couch with that dumb amused expression on his face, like he wants to laugh but he doesn’t want to give Richie the satisfaction. 

“No, I just…” Eddie rakes his hands over his face. “I don’t wanna talk about Greta anymore.” 

Richie flops down on the couch next to him, half on top of his feet, and in his eagerness to change the subject, he blurts, “Hey, Eds, you wanna hear about the day I had? It’s fuckin’ wild. You’re not gonna believe it.”

Eddie pulls his feet out from under Richie and then—wonder of wonders—stretches them across his lap. “Tell me.”

“So, um. Well.” Richie stalls for a moment, his drunk mind slowly swimming through his options, trying to decide if he can switch gears and make up something not true but appropriately ‘wild’ to tell Eddie. But for reasons he can’t quite explain, he decides not to. “Okay, fuck it. There’s a guy that I’ve been sleeping with.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, something flickering behind his eyes. His feet are still resting in Richie’s lap.

“Yeah, and he’s engaged.”

“ _Oh_.” Eddie sits up straighter and in, doing so, withdraws his feet. 

“Yeah, okay, I don’t need the judgment–”

“I’m not–”

“No, really it’s fine, please don’t,” Richie says quickly, because he doesn’t need the sympathy either. “It’s been going on for a few months now and the punchline is that his fiancee was starting to get suspicious which I found out today when she came home in the middle of us…” Richie trails off, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. 

Eddie yelps, “What?!”

“Yeah!” Richie exclaims, voice growing louder as he feeds off of Eddie’s energy. 

Eddie hides his face in his hands, laughing. “Holy shit, Richie, she caught you? What the fuck did you do?”

“Well, she came home, and we were in… the bedroom…” Richie drops his voice to a sultry whisper and Eddie smacks his arm, snorting. “So, he shoved me into the closet and I had to stand there fuckin’ half-dressed and listen to them fight for like twenty minutes until eventually I was like… nope, I’m done, and I left. I just walked right past them out the front door and I think they were both too shocked to say or do anything and then I just got in my car and drove back home.”

“Holy shit,” Eddie says, his smile dropping a little. 

Richie recognizes that the story isn’t funny if you think about it for longer than five seconds—so he tries to make sure Eddie doesn’t get the chance.

“Yeah, so, uh, that’s one for the life highlights reel. And the kicker is, the guy is– did you ever know Connor Bowers? Of the white trash, piece-of-shit Bowers?”

“Wait, that guy? Bowers’ cousin?” Eddie looks horrified. 

“Look, he’s hot!” Richie protests, laughing. “He’s hot and I clearly don’t have a lot of options out here and anyway– _that’s_ never gonna happen again.” 

That part hasn’t totally sunk in yet; the idle fantasy that lingered over the months, that Connor was going to call off his engagement and be Richie’s boyfriend… well, it’s dead in the water now. 

“He was really a piece of shit to me one summer, when we were kids,” Richie says absently, and Eddie hums with interest. Richie never told any of the Losers this story but he assumes they must have heard; there were fucking _dozens_ of witnesses. And Derry, like all small towns, runs on a currency of gossip. “I guess I got revenge for that, in the end. But look at both of us, hooking up with our childhood bullies. Aren’t we sad, townie cliches?” 

Eddie sighs heavily. “Greta wasn’t–” 

“She totally was, Eds,” Richie interrupts. “And it’s fine, if you’re into that, if you like being pushed around a little, I could see it.” 

Richie really shouldn’t speculate about what Eddie might or might not like, it’s really not helpful, and he should definitely not do so out loud in front of Eddie. 

“Fuck you,” Eddie grumbles, and Richie says, “Hey, if you’re offering.”

He needs to _stop_ , but he feels like a runaway train. It’s so easy to keep pushing it a bit further, figure out where the breaking point is, if there is one. 

“Yeah, you do a lot of that, huh?” Eddie says, glancing over. 

Richie’s drunk—they’re both drunk—and he’s terrible at reading cues, always has been but… It seems a little like Eddie’s coming onto him. That’s far too much to deal with at the moment, though, so he just scoffs and says, “Yeah, totally,” and hops up from the couch to grab them each a beer from the fridge.

The beers stay mostly untouched on the coffee table but the break helped to reset the momentum. It was starting to feel like a game of chicken, the two of them running toward each other at full speed.

Now things have slowed. Eddie’s lying back on the couch and he says, “The thing that’s getting to me is… how much I feel like a failure.” 

That’s certainly in Richie’s wheelhouse. _Maybe we’re not so different after all, Eduardo_ , he thinks but doesn’t say. 

“Because of school or the job or…?” Richie prompts. 

“Both?” Eddie says. “But also… My relationship with Greta and… even my mom, I keep thinking if I tried harder could I make it work? Is it my fault? They both think so.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Richie says readily. Eddie rolls his eyes, so he doubles down. “No, I’m serious, Eddie, you are like… _so_ easy to get along with. Which, coming from _me_ , a person who is a nightmare–”

“You are not,” Eddie says, cracking a grin now.

“–if I can handle you, then they have no excuse.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says slowly. “It feels different with you. Easier? Like, we just put everything out there and yell at each other or like, this…” He gestures back and forth between them, sitting on the couch now, so many drinks deep. “I never do this with Greta. With her it’s like, suddenly she’ll pull back or be really obviously mad at me and I’ll spend a week racking my brain trying to figure out what I did wrong.” 

Richie’s ears rush. He thinks that, for starters, things don’t always feel so easy on his end. He doesn’t put everything out there; there’s plenty he withholds from Eddie, and there have been plenty of times he’s felt like he has to pull back, by no fault of Eddie’s. And he’s sure he _has_ done that, earlier in his twenties; cycles of time when he could hardly bear to be around Eddie at all, and couldn’t tell him why. Does this mean Eddie doesn’t remember? Didn’t notice? Doesn’t want to bring it up? None are good options. 

“It’s a two-way street though,” Richie says, falling back on impersonal advice. “She’s always making you feel like you’re not doing enough. Relationships can be easy, you know.”

Eddie looks over at him and smirks. “Give me more relationship advice, guy who got caught having an affair today.” 

Richie laughs openly. “Well, yeah! I think that makes my advice valid. Look at me, a total disaster. You don’t want to end up like me, right?” 

Maybe he crossed the line of fun self-deprecation into actual concerning territory, because Eddie fixes him with a sad look. “It’s like what you said. That you don’t have many options. I guess I feel the same way. I shouldn’t throw away something like this because the chance I’m gonna find something better? Pretty fucking slim.” 

Richie feels indignant and frankly kind of offended by the idea that Eddie’s not good enough for a relationship that makes him happy, and that’s why he starts running his mouth and cuts the brakes. 

“Look, Eddie, I know you just wanna throw a pity party right now, but I have to stop you right there because– maybe you are too good for anyone in Derry, I’ll grant you that, but maybe you have to get out of this shithole town then, because you _deserve_ better. And you could make it, too, anywhere you end up, because you’re a really special person– I can’t believe I know you sometimes, that I could be so lucky to know you. To me, that already beats the odds, so yeah, I think you are gonna find a way to be happy. I know you’re gonna do it, because I’ve already seen you come this far. You know?” 

Richie turns to look at Eddie, finds him staring back at him with a wide-eyed, vulnerable and awed expression on his face. Richie thinks, _well, that was a bit over the top_ , but before he can say anything to undercut it Eddie’s lunging across the couch to kiss him. 

It’s clumsy and disorienting, Richie’s eyes still open and his arms stiff by his side, Eddie breathing hot and wet against his face. In another second, Richie gets with the program. He opens his mouth to suck on Eddie’s tongue, and gets his hands around his waist, and they’re horizontal before he realizes it, Eddie lying flat on the couch beneath him. 

The only thought going through Richie’s mind is _this is your chance, this is your only chance_ so he doesn’t overthink it. Eddie wraps his legs around Richie’s waist, heels digging in, pulling him closer. They grind together and Richie can feel Eddie’s dick, knows Eddie can feel his, and he’s going to burst out of his skin with how much he wants– everything. But above anything he needs to make it good for Eddie. 

So, to that end, he rears back to kneel above him, rushing to undo the button of Eddie’s jeans and pull down his zipper. One of Eddie’s arms is folded over his eyes like he doesn’t want to see Richie, doesn’t want to remember that it’s him doing this, and that’s– well, it’s not _fine_ , but Richie can muddle through his own feelings later. He takes Eddie into his mouth and that helps to put all selfish thoughts aside for a while, focusing only on Eddie’s reactions, the rhythm of his breathing and the tightening of his hand on his shoulder, clutching a handful of his t-shirt. 

Eddie finishes after mere minutes, groaning and bucking his hips, filling Richie’s mouth. Richie sucks until he’s done, finally pulling off to wipe his mouth on his hand and stare down at Eddie’s face. He looks flushed and beautiful, chest heaving, his shirt ridden up to his ribcage. 

Richie’s so turned on that his teeth ache but he doesn’t do anything, just watches Eddie breathe for a moment, the taste of him lingering on the back of his tongue. 

Then all at once Eddie claps his hand over his own mouth and bolts up from the couch, running for the bathroom down the hall. The sound of retching follows moments later, a splash as he empties the contents of his stomach into the toilet. 

Richie hasn’t moved, still kneeling on the couch with his dick hard—but less hard by the second. 

“Shit,” he mutters, and pulls himself to his feet. He walks unsteady to the kitchen first to pour a glass of water and then creeps down the hall to knock on the bathroom door. “Eds?” he calls. He tries the doorknob but it’s locked. “Eddie? You good?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Eddie calls back, a bit aggressive. The retching continues, and it sounds miserable. 

“I brought water.” 

“You can leave it there.” 

Richie frowns and sets the glass down by the door. Unsure what else to do, he returns to the living room and waits on the couch for a while. He briefly considers jerking off but the mood has been ruined beyond repair now—it’ll just take a few more minutes for his dick to catch up. 

He doesn’t hear anything from the bathroom so he goes back to check on him, haunted by a vision of Eddie passed out on the floor, choking on his own vomit. 

The door’s closed and locked again, but the glass of water has disappeared. 

“Eddie?” he calls. “All good in there?” 

“Richie, I’m fine!” Eddie snaps. “I just need to…”

“Okay.” Richie takes a step back, hot with shame. “Sorry. You can… still sleep on the couch. Let me know if you need anything.” 

Richie goes into his bedroom, feeling like total shit. He collapses into bed, not even bothering to get undressed or pull his sheets back. He leaves his bedroom door open and listens for a while as Eddie throws up again; as the toilet flushes; as he ventures from the bathroom back out to the living room. He realizes he didn’t leave him any blankets or pillows, but if Eddie wants them he’s just going to have to ask. Richie should stop doing things he hasn’t been asked to do anyway. It never ends well. 

The next morning, Richie wakes up early and hungover. The morning light shines muted and gray through his window. It’s barely six and he stumbles bleary-eyed from bed to the bathroom to piss, and drink a couple handfuls of water from the faucet. Then he pauses in the threshold to the hallway, but he hears nothing, so he takes a few cautious steps toward the living room. He finds the couch empty. Eddie’s shoes are gone and the front door has been left unlocked. 

Richie flips the deadlock and goes back to sleep until noon.


End file.
